Have homeownership (and home prices) bottomed out?

The home ownership rate in the US has fallen to about 65% … down from a peak over 69% during the housing boom & bubble.

Couple of observations:

With roughly 120 million households, that converts to about 5 million housing units … a rough indicator of how many folks bought homes that they couldn’t afford – either from the get=go or impacted by the recession

Big question: have we reached bottom or do we have another 1% – 1 million units – to go? Lots of analysts are saying we’ve reached bottom … but that requires an inflection point, right?

= = = = =
Note surprisingly, home prices map closely with the homeownership rate … except for the past couple of periods – with house prices trending up and homeownership still trending down.

Raises questions:

Is the recent home price strength just a blip that will fall back into pattern?